A group of humans are trapped in a skyscraper at the mercy of a psychotic artificial intelligence, in 99 Stories, a new series that will appear on AMC next year. There's no way out of the 99-storey building except to keep climbing, and each floor presents a different challenge, as the building's computer torments its human prisoners. The show is the brainchild of David (The Omen) Seltzer:

"The elevators are in control of (the strangers') destiny, whittling them out by deciding who they deem deserve to go up," Seltzer said. And what happens in the sealed-off high rise has much larger repercussions.

The set-up sounds similar to "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream," the famous Harlan Ellison story about a sentient computer who molests the last surviving humans until they kill each other. But the idea that the struggle of the humans in the massive office building affects the rest of the world could become a juicy metaphor for information-age alienation. We hope. Image by HTTP2007.